Posts by therzberg:

Reading Aloud to Children with Visual Impairment

July 29th, 2010

Reading aloud to a child can be a lot of fun! It also familiarizes the child with the language of books and helps develop vocabulary. If your child is visually impaired, here are just a couple of tips that may enrich the experience for you and your child.

1. Spend time talking about the book before beginning.
2. Talk about words and concepts in the book that your child might not be familiar with.
3. Help the child relate the story to their previous experiences.
4. Briefly describe what is happening in the pictures.
5. Let your child guide you through the story.
   • For infants and toddlers, it may be showing them how to hold a book and turn the page. It may be easier to begin with board books or twin vision books.
   • For pre-schoolers, this may mean letting them turn the pages as you briefly describe the pictures and read the story. For their favorite books, encourage them to “read” or tell you about familiar parts of the book.
6. Act out or retell the story together after you have read it.
7. Read the story over and over if your child asks.
8. Most importantly, have fun together!

Compiled by Dr. Tina Herzberg of the University of South Carolina Upstate from a handout developed by Gallaudet University and Instructional Strategies for Braille Literacy, edited by Wormsley & D’Andrea.

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Braille Tip: Getting Started with Punctuation and Contractions

July 29th, 2010

The literary braille code uses the traditional alphabet along with 189 contractions that represent a group of letters or whole words. For example, most letters of the alphabet stand for a word when there is a space on both sides of it. For example, the letter “b” stands for but and the letter “e” stands for every. Learning the contractions may seem a little like learning shorthand or figuring out a secret code. It takes time and lots of practice!

There are more than 450 rules that govern the use of the contractions. Oh, the rules we must learn in order to read and write in braille! In addition, we also need to know the basics of formatting. Some principles of braille formatting parallels that of print materials, while others do not.

From time to time I will offer information or a strategy for learning the contractions, rules, or basic formatting. Whether you are just learning braille or have known the braille code for many years, I hope you will find the tips helpful! If you have specific areas or questions you would like for me to address, just send me an email at therzberg@uscupstate.edu.

Punctuation

Let’s begin with punctuation. There is no space between the end of a word and a punctuation sign. This is an example of where braille follows the conventions of print.



Queens

I think of the contractions in terms of royalty where the queens are in charge and the less powerful princes and peons must defer to the queen’s authority. Let’s start this month with the queens.

Queens in braille include the following: the, of, and, for, with. I think of them as royalty or queens because they can stand for whole words or be used as parts of words.



Here’s an example of queens being used in a sentence.



Snugglers

The queens and “a” can be written together without a space between them. This makes them a snuggler to me. Others call them huggers.



In addition, the queens take priority over other part-word signs. For example, in the words then and them, we would use the, not th.



In office and official, we would use of, not ff.



Just remember that the queens rule!

Check back in October to learn about the princes and peons.

For more braille tips, visit the Braille Tip section of BrailleSC.org.

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